Songfacts®:

• Frontman Ben Gibbard discussed this track with VH1 News: "I wanted to create this character that's going through the motions, not really sure of why they're necessarily doing it because it's just the thing that they have to do at this point and it's expected that they're going to be doing this. It's not necessarily a story about any particular person in my life; it's as much an amalgam of a lot of different elements of how we move forward with our lives and what's expected of us and how we transition into those places."
• This takes inspiration from the classic novel Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Bronte. "Cath" is Catherine Earnshaw, who marries Edgar, a "well-intentioned" man of prominent social status despite being in love with the lower-class ruffian Heathcliff. The music video, directed by Autumn de Wilde, is set during the wedding ceremony, with Beth Riesgraf playing Cath, the bride, and Lukas Haas playing the unwanted guest, Heathcliff.
• This peaked at #10 on the Modern Rock chart.
• This was used in the MTV reality series The Hills in the 2008 episode "Boys Make Girls Cry."